Quote Originally Posted by hermanv
Mr ruadmaa: Although it is possible to measure certain things with great precision and accuracy, one needs to know ahead of time what the thing is one wants to measure. Generic testing (like say an oscilloscope) rarely produces answers better than 1 or 2%. Human ears are much better than this. People who have studied and measure cable effects often hide their results by going into the cable business (see for example: http://www.positive-feedback.com/Iss...piricalint.htm ) Its also worth noting that the telephone company who sends poor quality audio over long distances found long ago that wires are most important, and that those details like capacitance and inductance can make ordinary speech unintelligible when the wires are long enough. So, short wires must by definition also degrade the sound, just less so.

Mr. Peabody: Some cables are constructed to be directional. As an example consider the cable with two conductors and a shield. The two conductors go from one end to the other but the shield is often connected at only one end. By grounding the shield only at one end it provides its intended shielding function but can not conduct signal current or ground return current. This cable is mechanically directional (usually the shield is grounded at the source end)

With this technique a single ended cable can provide a little bit of the common mode current cancellation offered by balanced connections.

Whether cables that are fully symmetrical also exhibit directional bias after long use is a different question altogether, mine seem to, it is subtle and goes away within a few hours. I’ll argue neither side of this one.

JNeutron: My system sounds better when its been on a while. All the parts are electrically locked (to borrow your term). Although it might be possible that I am re-learning or acclimating to it's sound, I don't think this is it (no, I can not prove this). If it were just heat (many components change parameters with temperature) the system wouldn't need warm up on hot days or at least less of it. I doubt if the answer is quite that simple. I know plastics used as insulators accumulate electrons very slowly and release them even slower, this might be part of the answer. Since we last traded ideas, I have done much reading on cable effects and built many cables. I can now build a predictably good cable at will because it turns out there is indeed an audio cable science, the answers are available on the net.

The trouble with cable wars is the shouting of absolutes. Sad, the whole issue is about subtle distinctions
I'm curious about what you said about warm up.I've experience this with my system in that after about 30 minutes of continuous play it indeed sounds better.Thus my original post suggesting the AQ Jaguar with DBS.My thinking was that with the attached battery pack it would speed up the process.Yes or No? Furthurmore, I could live with the AQ king cobra in that it just takes a little more time to warm up and the AQ Jaguar is just one for convenience sake.Yes or No?Mind you I'm only a begginer and I'm impressed with the AQ king cobra.